Dateline July 14th, 2357, New Oxford Excavation, UK Sector 71. Uncovered a remarkable haul of artefacts from the early 21st century. Most pristine among these is a sonic data disc, theoretically a devotional item related to the contemporaneous female fertility symbol known as Rihanna. The disc was discovered intact in a transparent plastic case accompanied by a 120 x 120mm stapled booklet. It appears the disc’s primary purpose was related to sexual arousal. Photographic images within the booklet, both black-and-white and colour, offer up Rihanna in a multiplicity of sexual availability – eroticised nicotine smoking, massaging her chest area and flaunting multiple naked erogenous zones.
The disc appears to be the sixth in a series that Rihanna sold to the public. The primary focus over 11 songs is Rihanna’s insatiable desire for sexual activity. “Suck my cockiness, lick my persuasion”, she demands at one point, and later, “Keep it up for me, you can do it”. There is much more in a similar vein. She is backed by music typical of what’s been discovered from that era, a time when mainstream America embraced a watered-down version of European electronic club music of the previous two decades. She gathers other figures who were presumably her musical peers – Jay-Z and Calvin Harris – but the collection is really an excuse for Rihanna to boast, preen and strut with lewd panache; something, it has to be admitted, she does impeccably.
The music, however, while fruity, ebullient and enjoyable in places, was clearly a secondary concern, merely a fraction of the content that the persuasive business concern, brand Rihanna, must have placed on multiple media platforms. It is a credit to her that, despite the raw cynicism inherent in such an operation, she still comes across as remarkably likeable, and it's easy to see why she might have been worshipped during the last great age of narcissistic materialism.
Watch the video for "We Found Love" (featuring Calvin Harris)
